Epicurus imprimis nos a se ipse dimittit, qui
fugere omnem disciplinam navigatione quam velocissima jubet._ Lib.
xii. cap. 2. Metrodorus was the favourite disciple of Epicurus.
Brotier says that a statue of the master and the scholar, with their
heads joined together, was found at Rome in the year 1743.

It is worthy of notice, that except the stoics, who, without aiming at
elegance of language, argued closely and with vigour, Quintilian
proscribes the remaining sects of philosophers. Aristippus, he says,
placed his _summum bonum_ in bodily pleasure, and therefore could be
no friend to the strict regimen of the accomplished orator. Much less
could Pyrrho be of use, since he doubted whether there was any such
thing in existence as the judges before whom the cause must be
pleaded. To him the party accused, and the senate, were alike
non-entities. _Neque vero Aristippus, summum in voluptate corpora
bonum ponens, ad hunc nos laborem adhortetur. Pyrrho quidem, quas in
hoc opere partes habere potest? cui judices esse apud quos verba
faciat, et reum pro quo loquatur, et senatum, in quo sit dicenda
sententia, non liquebat._ Quintil. lib. xii. cap. 2.

Section XXXII.

[a] We are told by Quintilian, that Demosthenes, the great orator of
Greece, was an assiduous hearer of Plato: _Constat Demosthenem,
principem omnium Graeciae oratorum, dedisse operam Platoni._ Lib. xii.
cap. 2. And Cicero expressly says, that, if he might venture to call
himself an orator, he was made so, not by the manufacture of the
schools of rhetoric, but in the walks of the Academy. _Fateor me
oratorem, si modo sim, aut etiam quicumque sim, non ex rhetorum
officinis, sed ex Academiae spatiis extitisse. Ad Brutum Orator_, s.
12.

Section XXXIII.

[a] The ancient critics made a wide distinction, between a mere
facility of speech, and what they called the oratorical faculty. This
is fully explained by Asinius Pollio, who said of himself, that by
pleading at first with propriety, he succeeded so far as to be often
called upon; by pleading frequently, he began to lose the propriety
with which he set out; and the reason was, by constant practice he
acquired rashness, not a just confidence in himself; a fluent
facility, not the true faculty of an orator. _Commode agenda factum
est, ut saepe agerem; saepe agenda, ut minus commode; quia scilicet
nimia facilitas magis quam facultas, nec fiducia, sed temeritas,
paratur._ Quintil. lib. xii.

Section XXXIV.